posted by Karen Hampson
One agriculture-related outcome of the climate change conference in Copenhagen was the launch of The Global Research Alliance on Agricultural Greenhouse Gases. New Zealand took the lead in developing the research alliance, strongly backed by the U.S.A., as Tom Vilsack, US Secretary for Agriculture says in his blog. Millions of dollars have been pledged, with the aim of supporting research into reducing greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture while ensuring our long-term food needs are met. Twenty-one countries have signed up, according to this report on SciDev.net.

Sounds like good news, especially as countries as diverse as Chile, Denmark, Ghana, Malaysia, Vietnam and Australia are on board. However, I could find little detail about how "agriculture" is defined (eg industrial, small-scale?) or what types of techniques will be researched. Will it mean investment in GMOs, or could it open the door for widespread research into organic farming? The Ecologist, as ever, has a viewpoint on the outcome of Copenhagen for agriculture - some of the points in a recent article (click here) are relevant as a critique of the Research Alliance too.

This is one initiative we hope to hear from more soon.